For some reason, this mention of Starship's "We Built This City" led me down a hole of Internet research on my own personal Mandala Effect rabbit hole. I remembered as a kid, the Residents - who I only knew at the time as a bunch of guys wearing eyeballs as their heads - being part of the video for "We Built This City". I later became a fan of the Residents, who hadn't mentioned this at all. No evidence of them appearing with Starship, including the video for "We Built this City". But I hadn't been able to shake this vision for decades. Did I imagine it?
Tonight, digging deeper, I found it! I found the source. In 1984, just a year before "We Built this City", Jefferson Starship (the progenitor of Starship, we won't mention the Airplane here) released a video for their ostensible hit single "Layin' it on the Line".
There they were! The Residents! In a terrible, terrible Jefferson Starship video! Sung by Grace Slick and, uh, that dude from Starship!
Strangely, I'll be able to sleep deeply tonight knowing that this mystery that was knawing at my soul for so many years has finally been solved.
The idea of a worst song of all time is silly, but I want to use this as an excuse to juxtapose We Built this City with another Starship hit: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. The latter is just as fluffy and corny, but instead of generic corporate rock it's a soaring silly power ballad duet.
I think the secret sauce is Diane Warren. It's the same reason I love belting out I Don't Want to Miss a Thing at karaoke, or listening to If I Could Turn Back Time on a loop while working.
This post has been sponsored by the Committee to Get Diane Warren into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (CGDWRRHF).
Most of the comments here are going to predictably call out that "We Built This City" is not the worst song of all time and offer up an example that's ostensibly worse.
But I think a very important caveat missing from the article and all of the comments here is that Blender/VH1 never said it was the worse song of all time. They said it was the most "awesomely bad" song of all time. To which I 100% agree with. Its not worst songs, its good catchy songs that are also objectively bad. And I think "awesomely bad" is just a great way to title it. We can all agree "We Built This City" is a catchy ear worm you can rock out to in the car, it lifts my spirits whenever it gets played. It stands on the pantheon of terrible but awesome hits like "Ice Ice Baby", "She Bangs", and the Ghostbusters theme song.
Nobody is saying you shouldn't listen to "We Built This City". Its a guilty pleasure. Crank that mother up on your car ride home alone and rock the fuck out.
I didn't know Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to this song. Man, that's gotta sting.
But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not sure I would have even included this one, mostly because I wouldn't remember it existed. Maybe that's what makes it bad--it was in constant rotation in the 80s, but as soon as they stopped playing it regularly I just... forgot it existed.
Looking at various lists of "Worst Songs" always confuses me. A lot of them are just really popular songs that got overplayed. Wikipedia's page says the Spandau Ballet's "True" is one, which is just nuts.
There's a lot of weird revisionism when it comes to judging 1980s music (eg [1]). It actually feels like a lot of 90s kids just being haters. There's been analysis that you basically like whatever was popular when you were 14 [2].
Additionally, it seems like more modern music just isn't enduring [3] in the same way music from the 1950s to 1980s was. Just the fact that people today know about "We Built this City" nearly 40 years after it was released tells you something. I honestly think that unless you grow up in the 2000s you could go and play the music from 2000 to 2010 (as an example) and it would overall be much less recognizable than music from the 1960s and 1970s is.
Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all time". It's recognizable. People know it. It has a vibe. Millenials who grew up on 90s grunge may see it differently but that doesn't really mean anything.
Right there in the first paragraph: “At the time, Starship's most famous member, singer Grace Slick, was 46.”
Grace Slick was born in 1939, so she was among the oldest of her cohort already in the Sixties. She’s one of the strangest things about pop history for me, right up there with Debbie Harry being over thirty when Blondie hit it big, and Stuart Murdoch being accepted by Glasgow hipster circles well into his late 30s. Pop music is so youth-centered, and that youth audience has often been highly suspicious and deprecating of people much older than them, that it baffles me that these performers still flourished.
The comments here are pretty funny, and do almost nothing for me more so than highlight the subjectivity of musical taste. I'd never claim to be an authority on music, but as the child of a professional musician and with chops of my own that I'd describe as "good enough to entertain myself and others at times", I love so many of the songs people are ragging on here, "We Built This City" included. Sure, there's plenty of stuff that I don't go out of my way to listen to, and again, subjective, but man, fluffy pop? Corny Christmas Music? Lewd Comedies/Parodies? It's all got it's time and place.
OK, I get that satire is hard, but is there really nobody capable of it besides The Onion?
This article was based on a decade-old meme when it was written. That meme didn't particularly need elaboration in 2016, and here in 2024 it has been completely forgotten.
I don't think of GQ as being a great literary magazine, but I thought it had at least some pretension to it. This is weak internet-grade satire.
This 2016 article (posted on the song's 30th anniversary... we're now coming up for its 40th anniversary) is too old to note the LadBaby cover: We Built This City on Sausage Rolls
"Worst Song of All Time" or not, it's still an immensely popular song. If you want to poke fun at the 80s and their obsession with synths, poke fun at Scritti Politi instead! (e.g. Boom! There She Washttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QmDUkxAHgQ)
Meanwhile, the feeling of that 80s synth sound has been reimagined by modern composers, giving us synthwave and all its spinoff genres, and music videos made with an AfterEffects "VHS" plugin, like Turbo Killerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g
I assume everyone who thinks We Built This City is the worst song of all time has repressed the memory of Achy-Breaky Heart, which got at least as much radio play.
Definitely commercial 80s cheese and mastered for a mono clock radio like most 80s soft rock but it seems a bit of hipster stretch to call this the worst or even bad.
The synth and processed drums sit in the mix reasonably well for the time frame. There are some comical 80s songs in the same time frame where the synth really doesn't sit in the mix at all but somehow it remains endearing like Europe's "Final Countdown" or even Don Henley's "Sunset Grill" or Van Halen's "Jump" all of which are rescued by other musical and production value.
This song gave Settlers of Catan players the opportunity to spend ore and (exchanged) lumber to buy a city, and then burst into "We Built This City on Rock and Wood." So it can't be all bad.
Spoiler alert: It's not the worst song of all time. There is no one single "worst song", just as there's no one single "best song". It may be one of the worst, sure. But when doing something this subjective, there's no way everyone in the world universally agrees on everything...including "worst" and "best".
I don't care how many "experts" they asked or whatever, it's not the worst song. It always bugs the heck out of me when I see clickbait crap like this. If they think "We Built This City" is worst than...say..."My Pal Foot-Foot" by The Shaggs, then it just means this writer is full of shit.
The song I wish the radio would stop playing today is "Murder on the Dance Floor"
Something about the way the singer sings it just feels unusually soulless. After listening to it, I am completely convinced that if the DJ did kill the groove, Ellis-Baxter wouldn't give a shit.
I like the song, while simultaneously have a lengthy history of enthusiastically enjoying truly intolerable indie music.
The too-cool-for-hit-pop shtick has been over for at least a decade. Hipster snark is stale, itself deeply uncool, and low IQ. I'm unsurprised that this is a GQ article. Cultural media is in a fully-terminal tailspin.
In summary, We Built This City is a great American song. Catch me at the next karaoke night.
Why all the hate for Caillou? I personally think it's the Caillou theme song which ranks up there with "We Built This City" for irritating earworms. But there's another theory: "Bitch Caillou"
There are two "seasons" or personalities of Caillou. I'm not 100% positive which one came first, only that my kids grew up watching the kind Caillou.
The other Caillou season or personality is "Bitch Caillou." Kind Caillou was a staple of the Sprout channel on cable TV and all three of my kinds were able to enjoy this Caillou. About a year ago, PBS Kids expanded the Caillou episodes (because if you've seen Caillou, you've seen the Magnetman episode 100 fucking times) and started playing "Bitch Caillou" episodes as well.
Kind Caillou is a little four year old who learns the easy way and the hard way how to be a better sibling and about the world around him. He learns how to be nice to kids who aren't nice to him, how to clean up, try new foods, and how much fun magnets are. He also goes to an apple orchard and I love apples.
Bitch Caillou complains, cries, and is generally a little asshole of a kid you'd probably trip if he was running around the supermarket. He is rude to his sister, a smart mouth to his parents, and doesn't know a single fucking thing about sharing his toys.
I think that the Bitch Caillou episodes were the originals because everyone I know with older kids wants to kill the little bald headed brat (and the overall look is a little more simple and silly) but everyone I know with comparable aged children to my own- have seen Caillou's good side.
The fact that this song (and this incarnation of this group) has any association with "After Bathing At Baxters", "Surrealistic Pillow", "Crown of Creation" or "Blows Against the Empire" is somewhat tragic.
For those complaining that it's not "the worst song of all time," yes, we all know it's not the worst song. This includes the clickbaiters who claim it is.
It's cheesy, it's simple, Grace Slick hates it. All those factors make it fashionable to hate it, and it's been like that for a long time. However, it's also catchy, fun, and the lyrics are easy to remember. It's a karaoke staple for all those reasons, good and bad.
An oral history of "We Built This City," the worst song of all time (2016)
(gq.com)78 points by coloneltcb 14 November 2024 | 246 comments
Comments
Tonight, digging deeper, I found it! I found the source. In 1984, just a year before "We Built this City", Jefferson Starship (the progenitor of Starship, we won't mention the Airplane here) released a video for their ostensible hit single "Layin' it on the Line".
There they were! The Residents! In a terrible, terrible Jefferson Starship video! Sung by Grace Slick and, uh, that dude from Starship!
Strangely, I'll be able to sleep deeply tonight knowing that this mystery that was knawing at my soul for so many years has finally been solved.
I think the secret sauce is Diane Warren. It's the same reason I love belting out I Don't Want to Miss a Thing at karaoke, or listening to If I Could Turn Back Time on a loop while working.
This post has been sponsored by the Committee to Get Diane Warren into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (CGDWRRHF).
I'd rather hear We built this City 10 times in a row than any 10 songs of Taylor Swift's. How about that?
But I think a very important caveat missing from the article and all of the comments here is that Blender/VH1 never said it was the worse song of all time. They said it was the most "awesomely bad" song of all time. To which I 100% agree with. Its not worst songs, its good catchy songs that are also objectively bad. And I think "awesomely bad" is just a great way to title it. We can all agree "We Built This City" is a catchy ear worm you can rock out to in the car, it lifts my spirits whenever it gets played. It stands on the pantheon of terrible but awesome hits like "Ice Ice Baby", "She Bangs", and the Ghostbusters theme song.
Nobody is saying you shouldn't listen to "We Built This City". Its a guilty pleasure. Crank that mother up on your car ride home alone and rock the fuck out.
But if I was making a list of Awful, Terrible Songs, I'm not sure I would have even included this one, mostly because I wouldn't remember it existed. Maybe that's what makes it bad--it was in constant rotation in the 80s, but as soon as they stopped playing it regularly I just... forgot it existed.
Looking at various lists of "Worst Songs" always confuses me. A lot of them are just really popular songs that got overplayed. Wikipedia's page says the Spandau Ballet's "True" is one, which is just nuts.
Additionally, it seems like more modern music just isn't enduring [3] in the same way music from the 1950s to 1980s was. Just the fact that people today know about "We Built this City" nearly 40 years after it was released tells you something. I honestly think that unless you grow up in the 2000s you could go and play the music from 2000 to 2010 (as an example) and it would overall be much less recognizable than music from the 1960s and 1970s is.
Anyway, it seems silly to call this the "worst song of all time". It's recognizable. People know it. It has a vibe. Millenials who grew up on 90s grunge may see it differently but that doesn't really mean anything.
[1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-poll-...
[2]: https://archive.is/zM4xq
[3]: https://stereomonosunday.com/2019/03/23/why-modern-music-is-...
Grace Slick was born in 1939, so she was among the oldest of her cohort already in the Sixties. She’s one of the strangest things about pop history for me, right up there with Debbie Harry being over thirty when Blondie hit it big, and Stuart Murdoch being accepted by Glasgow hipster circles well into his late 30s. Pop music is so youth-centered, and that youth audience has often been highly suspicious and deprecating of people much older than them, that it baffles me that these performers still flourished.
Especially when we live in a world where "Sweet Caroline" (specifically sung by Neil Diamond) is a thing.
But that's just like, my opinion, man.
This article was based on a decade-old meme when it was written. That meme didn't particularly need elaboration in 2016, and here in 2024 it has been completely forgotten.
I don't think of GQ as being a great literary magazine, but I thought it had at least some pretension to it. This is weak internet-grade satire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEB8bfP7wE
"Worst Song of All Time" or not, it's still an immensely popular song. If you want to poke fun at the 80s and their obsession with synths, poke fun at Scritti Politi instead! (e.g. Boom! There She Was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QmDUkxAHgQ)
Meanwhile, the feeling of that 80s synth sound has been reimagined by modern composers, giving us synthwave and all its spinoff genres, and music videos made with an AfterEffects "VHS" plugin, like Turbo Killer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g
The synth and processed drums sit in the mix reasonably well for the time frame. There are some comical 80s songs in the same time frame where the synth really doesn't sit in the mix at all but somehow it remains endearing like Europe's "Final Countdown" or even Don Henley's "Sunset Grill" or Van Halen's "Jump" all of which are rescued by other musical and production value.
"That's a good place to build a city."
"... and roll."
"We're doomed!"
(Don't believe me? Listen for yourself: https://youtu.be/94Ye-3C1FC8)
I don't care how many "experts" they asked or whatever, it's not the worst song. It always bugs the heck out of me when I see clickbait crap like this. If they think "We Built This City" is worst than...say..."My Pal Foot-Foot" by The Shaggs, then it just means this writer is full of shit.
Something about the way the singer sings it just feels unusually soulless. After listening to it, I am completely convinced that if the DJ did kill the groove, Ellis-Baxter wouldn't give a shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTeSkg-YIWI
The too-cool-for-hit-pop shtick has been over for at least a decade. Hipster snark is stale, itself deeply uncool, and low IQ. I'm unsurprised that this is a GQ article. Cultural media is in a fully-terminal tailspin.
In summary, We Built This City is a great American song. Catch me at the next karaoke night.
Why all the hate for Caillou? I personally think it's the Caillou theme song which ranks up there with "We Built This City" for irritating earworms. But there's another theory: "Bitch Caillou"
There are two "seasons" or personalities of Caillou. I'm not 100% positive which one came first, only that my kids grew up watching the kind Caillou.
The other Caillou season or personality is "Bitch Caillou." Kind Caillou was a staple of the Sprout channel on cable TV and all three of my kinds were able to enjoy this Caillou. About a year ago, PBS Kids expanded the Caillou episodes (because if you've seen Caillou, you've seen the Magnetman episode 100 fucking times) and started playing "Bitch Caillou" episodes as well.
Kind Caillou is a little four year old who learns the easy way and the hard way how to be a better sibling and about the world around him. He learns how to be nice to kids who aren't nice to him, how to clean up, try new foods, and how much fun magnets are. He also goes to an apple orchard and I love apples.
Bitch Caillou complains, cries, and is generally a little asshole of a kid you'd probably trip if he was running around the supermarket. He is rude to his sister, a smart mouth to his parents, and doesn't know a single fucking thing about sharing his toys.
I think that the Bitch Caillou episodes were the originals because everyone I know with older kids wants to kill the little bald headed brat (and the overall look is a little more simple and silly) but everyone I know with comparable aged children to my own- have seen Caillou's good side.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/2mzfyj/why_do...
So, kind Caillou/bitch Caillou is basically like Jefferson Airplane giving us "White Rabbit," and Jefferson Starship delivering "We Built This City."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K75cj0FmGHM
Just remembered "Rico Suave," gonna nominate that one as well.
It's cheesy, it's simple, Grace Slick hates it. All those factors make it fashionable to hate it, and it's been like that for a long time. However, it's also catchy, fun, and the lyrics are easy to remember. It's a karaoke staple for all those reasons, good and bad.
I mean, how can this song be the worst song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRE-LYqwAi8
Glad to know I'm not alone.